Gamesmanship

[gissajob]

My 1st SOM league on-line has been a bit disappointing because as we see in all walks of life someone tries to bend the rules. The individual is using part time players B. Alyea (all are 1969 League), W. Held, Jim Hicks, G. Alley etc. to great effect. In less than 1/2 a season Held and Alyea each have close to 30 Home Runs. The guy does not have one full time major leaguer in his lineup from 1969 everyone is like 150 at bats. He has a solid starting staff & bullpen. MY problem is something should be done to prevent people from overusing players beyond their yearly stats, you cannot rely on the honor system, because if only 11 of 12 people are honest and one isn't it won't work.

[LMBombers]

You have it all wrong. Every player that has a TSN SOM card is available to every owner to use. No where in the rules does it state that you should only use players that were regulars in 1969 real baseball. We are not trying to recreate every players exact number of ABs or IPs. We are playing a game using the 1969 players.

It is a gamble using such players as any hitter with less than 600 plate appearances (hits + walks) could have an injury of up to 15 games while hitters with 600 PA or more may not be injured for more than 3 games max. Also these players that are heavily slanted towards LHP or RHP are succeptable to a RP coming in from the opposite side.

Many leagues have been won relying on these specialized players. Usually a team filled with them won't win consistently but a team that has 2 or 3 of them can use them to great advantage.

Using such players is not cheating the system. These players are a part of the game for anyone to use. If you look at the salaries of some of these specialized players vs some full-time players you will notice that in many instances the part-time players heavily slanted towards LHP or RHP are priced much higher than many full-time players. If you want to use these specialized players you have to pay for them just like any other player in this game. The salaries are based on their card, not on how good of a player they actually were in 1969.

[Roosky]

LMB is right, this is not cheating at all. That is why some part time players are so expensive. They were meant to be used on a full time basis. It is just partof the game.

[TomSiebert]

That's the whole pleasure of the game; managing to YOUR draft choices, not following the pre-ordained script of somebody else.

I won a divison in the 2005 season w/ Kevin Youkilis and Nick Swisher getting 500+ PA, David Segui 300+ PA.

There are guys who played 155+ games that don't cost a buck. It's because they suck. People are priced for their performance, not their games played.

tws

[childsmwc]

All players in a set are priced as if they will be used to start a full season. So regardless if a player only had 100 PA's from 1969, if he had a good card then his price should reflect this. I think the 1969 game has a nice salary structure :wink: , except that some of the extreme platoon players were underpriced somewhat. However, the online verson of all the strat products were never designed to limit players to their actual usage.

Bbrool

[Runnin Rebel]

Welcome to the world of Strat on-line.......unless you are in a theme league with some sort of restrictions in place every player is eligible to play as many innings as they can regardless of true stats.

This "realism" debate has been going on for years and result in incredible pitchers and power hitters posting near record numbers based on a short season call-up or limited pinch hitting duty.

All I can tell you is good luck and lesson learned.

[JAMESMCLEAN 2]

In the first strat league I played in (not on-line, face-to-face league) we had a law student who finessed the cards to his great advantage. He was clever enough to play unconventionally and draft and manage his team without any regard to "realism." Well, I learned a good lesson, If you want to win, you figure out ways to maximize your chances even if it means distorting "history."

However, it still bugs me a little when cards like Valdespino's are utilized in a strategic way that greatly distorts the player's real-life value. Such tactics do take away some of the romance of baseball. But I try to remember that strat's a game not a recreation of reality ... whatever that is.

[pedakrla]

Well said, JD.

[OdysseyTigger]

It might have been a good idea to have read and understood the rules of the game before plunking down 25 bucks to play it. That sort of helps in all walks of life.